Nick U’Ren on the “Death Lineup” and what it does for the Warriors: “It works because there are no other players like those guys”

Nick U’Ren, special assistant to Steve Kerr (who calls him his “chief of staff”), famously suggested that the Warriors start the small unit in the middle of last year’s Finals and then got name-checked for it by Kerr immediately after Game 4 in Cleveland.

U’Ren hasn’t talked about the whole thing very much, or talked about anything publicly, because he likes to stay behind the scenes and sure doesn’t want it to seem like he did or does anything more than any other members of Kerr’s staff do on a daily basis.

But a few days ago, he agreed to talk to me about the scenario back in last year’s Finals and some of the unique qualities of the “Death Lineup.”

—NICK U’REN interview transcript/

-Q: What do you remember about how it entered your mind to suggest going with Iguodala for Bogut and a small lineup in Game 4 of the Finals last year?

-U’REN: People kind of see the narrative as that lineup was first used in the Finals or something like that, but in reality we’d been using it–not all the time, but Stevie had been going that lineup in the regular season and it always worked out well.

You could just feel the energy of that lineup and we’d go on spurts every time it was out there.

So it’s not like the Finals was the first time we tried it. That’s one reason we were so comfortable doing it, because we’d used it and we knew it could be successful

I was a fan of it whenever we went to it–because it always sped up the pace and we’re a team that plays its best when we’re going faster. We all saw that.

So this happened organically, as we got into the Finals and with the way the Cavaliers were playing.

You saw it, we were struggling. We weren’t playing at our normal pace.

Cleveland is very different now than it was then, but in that series, they were throwing it to LeBron on the elbow and he was holding the ball and it was stymieing our pace, he was just kind of controlling the game on the offensive end–he’d back the ball down and we couldn’t get going.

We kind of got back to our kind of pace by the end of Game 3–we got the pace up, but we still lost the game, and we had to figure out how to get the pace up the whole game.

And Andre is such a great defensive player, obviously, but he’s a great offensive player–he’s so cerebral and can handle the ball and he thinks through things and he can get our pace going that way.

So he could help us on both ends, and again, we had tried it before and we knew it could work.

Also, Steve’s so close to Pop, we’re always watching a lot of the Spurs stuff. I had it all downloaded and I was watching the Spurs-Miami series, of course because LeBron was with Miami then, and in one of those games Pop started Boris (Diaw) to increase the tempo.

I thought maybe Andre could do that for us.

And I showed Luke the tape, he jumped on board right away. And Stevie deserves all the credit because he agreed, and he’s the one who had to make the decision and live with.

And Andre of course is the one who did it.

-Q: Were you nervous before the game and when the game started not so well?

-U’REN: At shoot-around that day–Stevie had decided to do it in the morning–we were walking through some stuff and Luke and Bob and I were looking out and we said, ‘Wow, Draymond’s our tallest player. Geez, we’re really small.’
And then of course the game starts and we fall behind 12-2 or something, Mozgoz had 2 or 3 offensive rebounds and put-backs.

At that point I was thinking, ‘Oh geez, what’s happening?’ It wasn’t personal nervousness, it was concern about what’s going on with our team. Can we survive this?
But (player development coach) Chris DeMarco, who sits next to me behind the bench, said, ‘Look, we’re getting wide-open looks.’ And he was right–Harrison had a wide open three that he just missed and Andre had a wide-open three that he just missed.
He said we were getting what we wanted and we would start making them. And luckily that turned out to be true.

-Q: And then you win and Kerr goes and mentions that you made the suggestion. That had to be some kind of moment for you.
-U’REN: I had no idea he was going to do that. I had a friend at the game, so I was on the court afterwards, then came back to the locker room and (PR assistant) Matt de Nesara came up to me and said would you talk to (a reporter) because Steve mentioned you by name.

I had no idea Steve was going to mention my name. It’s easy to make a suggestion and Steve had to make the decision and live or die with the consequences.

And Andre had to move into the lineup and execute it and he did and was the Finals MVP.

That’s the real story here–those are the guys who deserve the credit.

And I say that knowing that Steve would’ve never mentioned my name if wouldn’t have worked.
All of that was so kind of him. I don’t think there’s any other NBA team where a staffer, a kid like me could suggest something and it would be taken seriously and considered and then used like that.
That’s a credit to Steve and the empowerment he gives all of us. We can all make suggestions and everybody listens and eventually we all agree on something.

I’m so lucky to be here.

-Q: Did it change your life?

-U’REN: I don’t think so. Not too much, anyway.

Sometimes they like to give me a hard time–Steve and Luke like to give me a hard time about it, and they’re the ones who deserve to.

But otherwise, it’s just the same. I suppose maybe down the line it could help my career, but I don’t know.

-Q: Cleveland is different now, as you said, do you think going small is a main theme of what you want to do any more? Or even more now?

-U’REN: I have no idea what Steve is thinking about the starting lineup and maybe he doesn’t even know for sure yet.
But they are obviously so different right now from what they were last year.

I don’t know how it’s going to start, but inevitably the games will end with some small lineups out there.

They go to a lot of small lineups–Cleveland’s been opening the second quarter small in the playoffs, with Kevin Love or Channing Frye at the five. Mozgov hasn’t played in a while.

-Q: Do you think the small lineup is maybe best because it gets the best out of Curry?

-U’REN: Any time you can get Steph more space, it’s a good thing. He’s so skilled, so lethal, his gravitational force is so strong, any time you can create more space, Steph gets even better.

-Q: And his numbers exploded this year specifically with the small lineup.

-U’REN: I think you could say he has gotten more comfortable playing with lineup, so that’s natural.
-Q: What do you guys call the lineup? Any nickname for it?
-U’REN: Not really. I know other people sometimes call it the “Death Lineup.” We don’t call it that. Maybe we just say it’s our small lineup, or we’re going small.
-Q: It’s a thing now. Needs a nickname like that.
-U’REN: Yeah, but it’s not something we only tried first in the Finals. That’s the reason I even thought of it–because we’d been going to it more and more and I’d seen that we had success with it.
It wasn’t a crazy idea because we were already doing it and we were succeeding with it.
It works because Draymond can do so many things, because of Steph, because of Andre and Klay and Harrison and Shaun…
It works because there are no other players like those guys.